


A Family is Four

by janetcarter



Category: Terra Nova (TV)
Genre: Dystopia, Gen, Pre-Canon, Resentment, Siblings, Two-Child Policy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25833643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/pseuds/janetcarter
Summary: Josh, Maddy, and the consequences of a third child when two was supposed to be enough.
Relationships: Josh Shannon & Maddy Shannon
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	A Family is Four

**Author's Note:**

> Little thing based on some totally non-depressing conversations with WildandWhirling a while back. 
> 
> Using this for the Hurt/Comfort bingo prompt "Dystopia."

Their mom and dad told them the news with smiles on their faces. Josh and Maddy were going to have a new baby sibling. Now, maybe once upon a time, that would've been a good thing. But in 2143, a family is four. 

  
Josh wasn't stupid. He was thirteen. He knew where babies came from, and of course Maddy knew too. But Maddy seemed to hold out some hope that this new baby was an accident.

  
Josh didn't think so. He wanted it to be, he really did. Because maybe then it'd mean his parents didn't put him and Mads in jeopardy for a baby they didn't need to have. But his mom and dad were overjoyed. They must've had a plan in place they'd been keeping secret for a long, long time. They wanted to, what, stick it to the man? Have a big, happy family? 

  
They already had a family. And they just put them all at risk.

  
-

When it was time for the baby to come, they went to their aunt's place. He sat outside with Maddy, her legs swinging on the bench in the middle of nowhere. In the months leading up to this, they'd played a verbal tug-of-war about how much the baby's arrival would really change. Sometimes Josh let himself be swayed, let himself believe that yeah, they could do this. It wouldn't be all bad. Other times, he managed to pull Maddy out of her optimism far more than she was comfortable with. It almost made him feel guilty, which was rich considering his parents felt nothing like it.

He just wished that, for once, Maddy would let herself stop being the perfect child. 

  
"She was really cute," Maddy admitted after a sigh. Josh was relieved she'd had finally calmed down. Maddy had, of course, spent the last 6 months reading up on everything to do with childbirth and scared herself half to death with what could happen to their mom. It'd scared Josh, too.

  
But it turned out okay. He liked Zoe. He didn't really get it, but he vaguely remembered Maddy looking about the same, really weird and scrunched up, and she turned out… well she turned out. In time, he could probably care about the new baby more. 

  
He didn't dare even whisper the disappointment he felt when he heard Zoe's first cry, however. Because he was sure that'd put him on another level of evil, wishing his own baby sister wouldn't make it because living with a kid under the floorboards isn't a life at all.

  
"What happens if mom and dad go to jail?" he asked. It was the closest he could come to saying the rest aloud. 

  
Maddy bit her lip, looking back through the dusty window at their parents blindly admiring Zoe. "I guess… we just have to make sure they don't." 

  
-

  
Hiding Zoe meant adopting a new version of normal. It was stress none of them needed, and it was starting to get through to Maddy, too, that they didn't sign up for this kind of sacrifice.

  
They couldn't have friends over. They had to keep Zoe as quiet and happy as possible when she seemed to cry over every little thing. They had to be on the lookout constantly, him and Maddy, staying up late wondering what'd happen to them if their secret ever got out. 

  
For parents who claimed they wanted to grow their family, they did something that would make them lose it all with one wrong move. It was the least he and Maddy could do to wonder why they weren't enough on their own.

  
"Josh?" she asked, looking up at him with sad eyes. They were in his room while everyone else slept, waiting for a baby's cry to tip them off. In the dark, in a hushed voice she shouldn't need, she asked, "Are we bad people?" 

  
His mouth twitched. "I dunno, Mads. I don't think so." 

  
"Then why do I feel like one?" 

  
_Because we hate a baby who didn't do anything wrong but be born._ "'Cuz we live in a fucked up world." 

  
He knew she wasn't doing well when she didn't scold him for swearing. Instead, she leaned against him. It was just the two of them, really. They stopped being their parents' kids the moment Zoe was born. After all, a family is four. 

  
With a fifth member, he and Maddy had no place.


End file.
